Mumbai artist kicks for Indian soccer

Riyas Komu’s new show Mark Him will travel across the country — Delhi, Kolkata and overseas to Dubai

MUMBAI: Guess who is espousing the cause of beleaguered Indian soccer? A blue-chip, hot-on-the-block artist. And the players are saying “wow”.

Painter-sculptor Riyas Komu’s photographic exhibition Mark Him, starting this Sunday at the Guild Art Gallery in Mumbai the city,  has all national football team members in it. Larger than life in more ways than one, each player poses at locations spread across India — Goa, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Ask him about setting aside the proceeds from the sale of these works to the cause of football, and Komu says, “I don’t want to disclose anything now.” But Komu has set his sights clear on the mission: invite empathy and attention to the lives of our footballers, lives riven with uncertainty and deprivation.

Starting as a photographic project, the show, says Komu, will evolve into a huge campaign over the next one year, incorporating video clips and installations.  The exhibition will later travel to Kolkata’s Gallery 88 titled Second Half, to Delhi’s Bodhi Art Gallery as Extra Time and then eventually to Dubai as Shootout.

For Komu, this is just a beginning of an effort to highlight the agony of being a soccer player in India. “Even the players of the national team continue to live and struggle in their lower-middle class situations. I am convinced that utter neglect is the reason why soccer is such an underdeveloped game in the country,” says the artist, who has travelled from Goa’s playgrounds to the stadiums in Kolkata to Mumbai’s hostels for the  shoot.

“This is unprecedented. I am sure people will enjoy it …. I am happy that an artist has come forward with a work on football,” says captain Baichung Bhutia about the exhibition.

The art world’s interest in soccer is not entirely new. Couple of months back, auction house Osian partnered with a sports management agency to take Delhi’s football club, New Delhi Heroes. But at an individual level, Komu has decided to take the lead and live in soccer-zealous Borivli for the love of the game.

ullekh@dnaindia.net